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Kos extends an olive branch to the PUMAs

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Obama ran the first successful 21st-century campaign, while Clinton was saddled with a legacy apparatus. But the years since have been good to Hillary and set her up with a clear path to the White House if she wants it.

Before we even get to whatever sick game Kos is playing, let's correct the record:

And if you look back on how the Obama administration does business, yes, that's what the 21st century looks like.

2. In fact, the much-reviled Mark Penn's "microtrends" presaged the "visionary minimalism" of the Obama 2012 campaign, where, for example, "Swing State Keynesianism" won OH and MI, the low-hanging fruit of covering pre-existing conditions and college-age kids under ObamaCare won the technocratic "creative class", and so on. And could it be that Penn was so reviled by Kos and his familiar, Chris Bowers, not because sucked, but because he was a potentially successful competitor?

3. Clinton ran a 21st century campaign (granted, after cleaning house in her campaign in February 2008. It's just that she did her outreach via disposable cellphones, because that's where her base was: Working three jobs, and not sitting in Internet cafes, like Obama's base in the technocratic "creative class," who also do "21st century" things like building web sites for Kos, the Obama Campaign, and shortly the health exchanges under ObamaCare. Could it be that Clinton's campaign didn't suck at all, and all Kos is doing is talking his book about services he and his posse deliver?

Anyhow, Lucy, here's the football:

For starters, Clinton enjoys near-universal love with base Democrats. She was always strong with Hispanic voters — a key primary constituency in 2008 — but her loyalty to the president has won over Obama partisans as well. The possible opposition is subpar at best.

I don't believe this for a minute. I think Kos is deking us with Clinton to set us up for Warren -- "She's a woman, too!!!" -- who does, after all, employ Chris Bowers, and from whom Kos gets a cut whenever she buys an ad on his site.

And though some may differ (Riverdaughter, perhaps, if she comments) I think that while Hillary might have made a marginal (though not insignificant!) difference in 2008, the deterioration 8 years later is just too great. If there's another crash -- and given that there was a crash in 2001 when the dot com bubble burst, and another crash only seven years later, in 2008, we're about due -- maybe she might make a difference. But I don't see a big enough bubble for another crash, just more grind, grind, grind. I wouldn't settle for being a caretaker President for Obama World, and I bet she has better things to do with her time.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

As one of the ones who followed Riverdaughter in the Writer's Strike at Kos, - therefore an early PUMA - I can promise you there is nothing, absolutely nothing, he/they can do to get me behind their content or page.

I find that fact that since the years have been kind to HRC she's now "acceptable" to them. They can go fuck themselves!

I had read several years ago that Markos was a fellow in a Centrist think tank, New Politics Institute (the think tank for Simon Rosenberg's NDN.

Anyhoo, Mark Penn is also a fellow there. Although I can't discern if Moulitsis is still there.

Wikipedia describes "Remarks about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign," which must have occurred back in 2008 (that are attributed to Moulitsas). You long-time bloggers may all be familiar with this incident. If not, it's at Wikipedia, which I won't link to because of my "difficulties" today.

At any rate, could it be that because the Democratic Party establishment (and they are all behind her from everything that I've read or heard) is going to make certain that she is not primaried, and that the nomination is hers if she wants it, that he is just getting out there now, trying to "mend fences?"

I doubt that Moulitsas wants his blog "to be left out of the action" by the Dem Party apparatchiks during the next Presidential cycle. So he might just be laying the groundwork now, to avoid that happening.

Of course, Lambert, and many of the rest of you guys have been in the blogosphere much longer than I.

Just a thought. (And a guess, LOL!)

[In advance, excuse the typos, please.]

Alexa

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilson

Kos is running the biggest Democratic blog. If Hillary is the nominee, he can hardly maintain his business model and be anti-Hillary. I see this as a political/marketing move. He needs to back off his anti-Hillary hate if he is to remain relevant. I am no longer a Democrat, so I really don't care. And the way things are going, the Democratic nomination may not be worth having.

It would be a pity if it collapsed. However bad it is, it does offer a nobody to post a diary and get to the top of the rec. list and be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. It is still part of Paris and not Versailles. So, I would be sad if it collapsed. I would just like to see other blogs, this one for example, grow in influence.

PUMAs were Clinton supporters who were thrown off Obama-supporting websites and then out of the Democratic Party (if they didn't leave "voluntarily"). They were and to an extent still are the targets for really vile personal assaults, especially misogynistic assaults, by Obama supporters.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Don't know that I'm an actual existing "member of PUMA" - the group splintered pretty early on with a few right wingers (definitely NOT Riverdaughter) trying to appropriate the name in support of McCain/Palin. However, I'm pretty sure the acronym stood for Party Unity My Ass and that the group sprang up organically in direct response to the DNC's assumption that HRC supporters would ignore all that had happened in the 08 primaries and fall in line behind Obama once asked.

Writer's Strike at DailyKos was the inspiration of Alegre in mid March 2008 by then Riverdaughter had been banned for almost 2 months from Daily Kos.

PUMA was inspired by a commenter at The Confluence after the May 31, 2008 Rules Committee meeting that took 4 Michigan delegates from Hillary and gave them (and all the uncommitted delegates as well) to Obama who wasn't even on the ballot. They also reduced the value of each delegate in Florida and Michigan to 1/2 vote but, everyone kind of knew that they'd be upgraded at the convention later.

At The Confluence, at least, PUMA had nothing to do with the November election and everything to do with the Convention. The Delegates had the legal right to vote for whatever candidate they choose. The pretense of "Unity" to browbeat Hillary delegates -- even pressuring them to switch to Obama and the talk of not entering Hillary's name in contention was outrageous she WAS a major candidate. As it was the delegates votes in many of the states Hillary won in a landslide were cast (willy-nilly) by the state governors, for Obama on the convention floor.

Which makes me wonder why we waste our time voting in primaries at all. Or would if I was still a Democrat.

Brings back memories of Harold Ickes, who was definitely no blushing violet or stranger to hard ball, who decried the RBC decision and, to my knowledge, never participated in Democratic Party politics again.

Interesting to go through this "ancient history" but at some point the old timers assume that the newcomers know everything! Bad assumption.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

it meant Party Unity My Ass. It got co-opted by birthers, etc., but to those of us who were once at Kos and left when it got impossible to post or even comment with regard to anything Hillary - it meant Party Unity My Ass.

I think the PUMAs were targeted by disinformation campaigns by both Republicans and Democrats. I think there was also a strain who (to put it delicately) were motivated more by personality than principle and who (again to put it delicately) found it easy to shift their loyalties to other personalities.

Kudos and mad props to the PUMAs who managed to pass through the refining fire, as Riverdaughter indeed did. The 2008 primaries were bad enough for me, but I was never the target of any sort of operation, and the PUMAs certainly were, in addition to the misogyny (though that might have been strategic hate management, too).

Again, I defer to corrections on the history for those more deeply involved.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

The hell with Kos! Wasn't he pro-Iraq war initially? Or pro-Bush, at least?

Also, unfortunately, time has not frozen for HRC. It's the same with Gore. They might have been useful in earlier times. Had she come into office in 08 without Obama's fetish for bi-partisanship, it's nice to think about what she might have done, but maybe I give her too much credit there.

Let's not forget. She was a member of the DLC. Bill was I believe a Charter member or a founder of it. (I know that James Clyburn was a charter members, but pulled his membership when the DLC got a lot of exposure).

So, seroiusly, it's hard for me to imagine that many things would have been handled any better.

Heard on XM radio a couple of days ago, Hillary wanted to go to war in Africa (whatever's going on over there--I turn it off, as soon as the topic of war comes up, so I don't pretend to know much).

At any rate, whatever most recent "war" was being ginned up, the President stood up against HRC and Panetta, etc. So I guess I should at least thank him for that. :-D

Personally, any Third Way or DLC types are unacceptable to me. Which probably means that I'll never vote again!

Alexa

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilson

Personally, the Obama administration from day one has been unacceptable to me. And the funny thing is that you could tell it would be crooked from the primary campaign he ran in 08, as detailed by Lambert above.

In any event, he "won," so to the victor the spoils, in this case the pleasure of defending his crappy Assassin-In-Chief-for-Corporate-Hire Administration.

There is a (war) theater that was being considered recently (which I said earlier, that I wasn't certain of the location, and I meant it) that Clinton and Leon Panetta, etc., wanted to send "boots on the ground." Actually, I believe that there is more than one hotspot in Africa, so still not sure that it wasn't one of those. However, not certain "what country"--only that Obama nixed the idea--for which I am grateful (if grudgingly).

Bottom line, he's being praised in Republican and Democratic circles for standing his ground against the pressure of the MIC, in this instance.

Otherwise, I assure you, I'd be the last person to defend any of the Democratic Party establishment's actions.

Alexa

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilson

Obama is imaginative in working evil. I never saw imagination as Hillary's strong point, but I think the only imagination really needed in 2008 was to look to the lessons of what built the Democratic Party in the past: HOLC, an FDR program, is an example of that. Obama's "visionary minimalism" cut free from all that, with the results that all of us see. Thanks, I never thought about this issue from that angle.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

and I do vaguely now remember seeing some PUMAs on Neil Cavuto's finance show (on Fox). I did watch it for a while, because so many conservadems are regularly on with him. Including Jim Clyburn--one of Cavuto's darlings. :-)

And this is what they were saying--they would vote for McCain, before Obama.

Here's what I dug up:

It was in answer to my exact question, "What is a PUMA?"

Partially correct, and less than helpful

P.U.M.A. does stand for "Party Unity, My Ass". It is a spontaneous movement of individuals who reject the traditional call to Democratic party unity.

Some will stay home, some will vote for protest candidates, some will vote for McCain, some will be won over by Obama or motivated by McCain, some will vote reluctantly for Obama, some are up for grabs -- looking for Obama to earn their votes, or to demonstrate insight and outreach, or to exercise sufficient leadership to restrain his cyber-brownshirts.

Since the viral release of this acronym June 1, a number of PUMA-related groups have been formed, some with variant agendas and fictive claims to leadership and invention.

The McCain campaign and FOX News of course are eager to exploit this development, but it's not up to them, and most PUMAs (even those who will vote for him if Obama is the Democrat nominee, as I will) hold McCain in contempt.

by RonK Seattle 2008-06-24 07:05AM | 0 recs

Learn something every day, huh? :-D

[Just for the record, I have no dog in this fight, since I could not vote for either of the 2008 candidates in the future.]

Alexa

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilson

Yes, it was about the party in the end. And what it had become to "claim victory" of a sort.

The 08 primary and Pelosi's "Impeachment is off the table" nonsense were two giant facts I just couldn't (and still can't) ignore about the Democrats, and 08 marked the end of my 25 years of supporting them.

heh. I've recently learned I'm notorious for my "hate" of Obama. I'm one of this most vocal critics on both my web sites, [The Stars Hollow Gazette http://www.thestarshollowgazette.com/frontPage.do] and [Docudharma http://www.docudharma.com/frontPage.do]. I walked away from the Democratic Party the day they handed Obama the nomination in a smoky backroom and haven't looked back. I went into voluntary exile from GOS for a year. Hoping it would be better, I tried again but was viciously attacked as a "racist" for legitimate criticism of Obama's policies.

I comment far less than I used to, now and only occasionally post an essay.

kos has a product that he has to sell. To do that he has to look past Obama, who he openly criticizes from time to time, and pretend that he's a "progressive" when in reality he is just shilling a product and will go whatever way the wind blows so long as the ad money keeps flowing.

I voted for Hillary in the primary and wrote her name in on the '08 ballot. This year, I campaigned and voted for Jill Stein and the Green Party. Would I vote for Hillary on '16 if she runs? I honestly don't know. I do know this, I will NOT be involved in the political process at DK. I'm too far to the left of the so-called liberal/progressives of the DNC/OFA/DLC etc.

I think I wrote about this a month or two ago about how the small evil group who took over the Democratic party would start searching around for another "historic candidate". Well, it worked so well for Obama. Now, if they can only conscript someone whose morality and sense of purpose is massively dwarfed by ego and ambition... Aw, shucks, we know it's got to be a woman next time around. I don't think it's going to be Hillary but the braintrusts who are running the party seem to think all that the PUMAs were about was a female candidate and it had to be Hillary. I don't want to argue with those Hillary detractors here to seem to think she was in cahoots with the DLC (I think she's a politician that tries to not make enemies) or approved of empire building (Not sure I agree with this either considering that the Obama administration reportedly never let her try her hand with anything in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East). As for her being unimaginative, I was there in Chicago in 2007 when she laid out a plan for infrastructure that focused on building our broadband capacity to worldclass levels and she's always been an extremely strong and passionate advocate for internet freedom. She was all over HOLC. That's visionary AFAIC.
She was the best candidate we had in 2008 not because she was Hillary Clinton and not because she was female. It was simply because she was prepared, hard working and had the most intimate knowledge of the political and governmental landscape. Therefore, she had to be sidelined. She was too much of a threat to the bankers. She was rehab. They wanted an enabler. So they pulled out all of the stops for Obama.
What's really ridiculous is trying to come up with reasons why the party activists rejected her. Oh, if only she had fired Mark Penn or told the DLC to go to hell or didn't win so many primaries and focused more on caucuses. You people are in denial if you believe any of this horseshit.
The party wanted Obama because he pulled in wads of cash for them and they thought they could sneak him in as the first African American candidate. The rules were broken for him, delegate counts were manipulated for him and the convention was the most egregious sham and public humiliation of a candidate that 18,000,000 people voted for. That's the tragedy of 2008. Obama wasn't a brilliant candidate. Hell, he reused someone else's speeches. He didn't run a brilliant campaign. He was hoisted on the shoulders of the party and the media and gently carried over the threshhold of the nomination. And it was all done at the expense of millions of primary voters who voted for their candidate in good faith. The primaries turned out to be an expensive fraud where the votes did not reflect the will of the electorate.
I don't care what moron you run as a candidate. That's the party's right. But when you start fucking with elections to get the result you want, that's where I draw the line. If Obama had won fair and square, I would have voted for him. But he didn't and all the excuse making in the world does not absolve him or the party of the extremely unethical behavior and misogyny of the 2008 election.
As I've said before, nothing good comes of a bad seed. And we have seen with this president that once you give him what he wants no matter how he campaigns, he can safely ignore you and your issues unless you stand up to him and tell him to go to hell.
It's too bad more people didn't do that in 2012 but now we're stuck with him without ever having put the fear of democracy into him.
I will not be swindled by Kos and his merry band of Democratic party con artists. They don't want peace. They think we former PUMAs are stupid enough to fall for this ploy so we can get behind whatever female candidate they party has decided to prop up for the 2016 election. And I for one, am not falling for it. If a female politician makes her relevant and challenges the Democratic party coup leaders successfully, that's one thing. I expect it will bloody to watch. But if one gets tapped and faces relatively smooth sailing, never challenging the financier class that must not be inconvenienced in any way, I will stay as far away from that candidate as possible. A historic candidate to me is one that will hit the reset button on the economy regardless of gender, ethnicity, race, religion, age or national origin.
As for Kos, he's shot his site's credibility. I'm reminded of the scene in The Crucible where Proctor refuses to sign a confession because the confession was a lie and he couldn't put his name to a lie. It's the only thing you have, you cannot have another. Your reputation and the trust people put in you is hard to regain once it's lost. Kos lost his.

.... that said being unfriended on FaceBook had deleterious effects on the unfriended person, so how much more to be thrown out of an online community and a political party! The injustice is always there for me, simmering under the surface.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Seriously, I've held my nose in order to vote for corporatist Dems for so many years, that I never think twice about calling Dem politicians out for being corporatists.

But, I didn't mean to offend anyone by calling her, or the President, a DLCer.

I would like to point out that Hillary has definitely been a DLCer. While she was a New York Senator, her picture was plastered all over the DLC website. And please read the excerpt below from Wikipedia.

As I recall, I posted a piece several months ago that demonstrated that the President was a member of the DLC, while he was a state legislator.

The 2008 Democratic Primary pitted New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a prominent DLC member, against Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who had previously stated that his positions on NAFTA, the Iraq War and universal health care made him "an unlikely candidate for membership in the DLC."[28] However, President Obama has since surrounded himself with DLC members, appointing Clinton herself as Secretary of State and another, (Tim Kaine), as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In May 2009, President Obama reportedly declared to the House New Democrat Coalition, the congressional arm of the DLC, "I am a New Democrat."[21]

I remember Politico reporting on this, as well (Obama).

One more thing, a part of me if really somewhat concerned about electing a woman, after the fiasco that we've seen for four years.

Let's not forget, that many of the Democratic Party machine constantly warn us that we cannot criticize the President, because of his status as the first black President. And that because of this, there are many issues that he cannot address.

I truly worry that this might be the case again, if we now turn around and elect either another minority, or a woman. We have too many pressing issues, to now have to worry about a silly problem like this.

As much as I disdain most of the "pasty ol' white men" that we've been stuck with for years, at least we never had some silly excuse that as white men, they could, or could not, deal with certain issues. :-D

Seems like we're scr**ed, no matter what we do, LOL!

[I apologize in advance for errors or typos.]

Alexa

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilson

I know last night, I couldn't believe the "BS" that was going on, at some blogs.

Thanks goodness this one actually had some serious discussion. A couple of others that I checked out, either discussed Boehner's drinking, or how great Michelle looked. Actually, I did have a serious conversation at one of the others about Medicare reform, on a fairly long thread. But that was the exception, not the rule.

It was mostly "our team, versus their team," which I guess qualifies as tribalism.

Anyway, I have about zero tolerance for that, because it bores the heck out of me.

I think that I didn't realize how fortunate, on the one hand, that we may have been that the President didn't have to go through a primary race.

I never knew (until today) that a war went on in the blogosphere. But that is kind of dumb of me, I admit, since in my short time, I've witnessed a mini-war over "third parties" at several blogs.

I suppose that the situations are actually rather similar. Heck, that was the reason that I was so glad when the election was over.

Don't think I could handle another period like that one. Think I'll just take up knitting like twig, during the next primary season. :-D

Alexa

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilson

... but we need a form of politics we can particiipate in, too! Hence my aversion to the legacy parties.

* * *

Yes indeed, a war, with the scars and the war stories to prove it! "If you have no place go to, come here" was a broader meaning now, but when I made that the slogan, it had a much more precise meaning.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

We never heard of this guy Barack Obama until 2004. Less than three years before taking the presidency, he was in the Illinois state senate, a swamp of scammers, backhanders, and party machine tools - not a stellar launch pad for the White House. And then, one day, state Sen. Barack Obama was visited by his fairy godmother. Her name is Penny Pritzker.

Yeah, some bloggers knew this and other damning things; they were drummed out of sites like Daily kIos when they tried to raise the alarm. I was on the fence until early 2008 when the fact that many progressives were hell bent on Obama's ascendency and would trash anyone who raised these issues, soured me on the lot. One such ostracized blogger was Lambert of Corrente who lost his spot at DailyKos for raising these questions about candidate Obama.

OFB PROPHLACTIC Yes, I am paid by the Hillary campaign. Yes, I hope to get a job in Hillary's administration. Yes, I am a shill. Yes, I am a hack. Yes, I am a liar. Yes, I am a racist. Yes, I am a purist. Yes, I am a troll. Yes, I am ignorant. Yes, I hate Obama. Yes, I ignore all facts that don't square with my [lying|racist|purist|shilling|hackish|trollish] preconceptions of Obama. Yes, my reading comprehension is poor. Yes, I have a hidden agenda: I hope that the Democrats lose, and to that end I support [not Obama]. Yes, I could be older than you. Yes, I think all young people are stupid. Did I mention I'm a shill and a hack? Good. Anything else?

Those were all the Obot (sorry, but the truth hurts) talking points....

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

It's amazing to me that I've read DKos (off and on) for almost ten years, but never heard of all these fights.

So, reading this thread, here's my last stupid question. Were you a staff writer there, like Joan McCarter? It sort of sounds like that, from this thread. And that would certainly make things even worse.

Just curious. Not sure how I missed all of this. I've read several blogs for years (although didn't actually start to really post until less than two years ago.) And never saw a word about the PUMAs.

Only saw the talking heads on Cable jousting about the Obama vs Clinton drama.

Hope you don't mind my asking. I'm just wondering because of the drift of the conversation. [Never knew that any of this might have been an impetus, but glad that this experience led you to "invent" Corrente. :-)]

Alexa

“If a dog won’t come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” -- Woodrow Wilson

And I didn't "invent" Corrente either. I am the only one still standing from a group of us who were Atrios's first summer fill-ins back in 2003. There is a lot of history here.

I wanted also to say that one good effect of the 2008 primary wars was that it really challenged me to come up with rules to moderate by. That's the source of the thinking behind the Moderation link in the menu (though no, I don't want to go meta).

In particular, the rule that not providing evidence when repeatedly challenged is a bannable offense evolved because in the 2008 chaos, some factions and individuals thought it was OK just to make shit up. ("This is too important for niceties!") I thought and think that's horribly destructive, so I put that rule in place.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Well, I wouldn't worry about it. What it shows me is that old-timers like myself aren't making enough effort to bring new readers along. We assume that you know all the conversation, ut in fact you don't. The fact that the 2008 primary wars are hidden history is pretty amazing. Shows Orwellian power.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

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